At the Royal Television Society's binnenial Cambridge convention tomorrow, Bradshaw will give his first speech since taking up the role of culture secretary in June. He is expected to challenge the BBC over its refusal to countenance top-slicing of the licence fee to pay for ITV regional news.

ITV has said it plans to withdraw from regional television news because it can no longer afford to produce it. The government is proposing that regional consortia of media companies should step in to offer ITV1 regional bulletins, with funding from the licence fee.

Bradshaw will refer poll findings suggesting that 65% of the public would favour part of the licence fee being used in this way. The poll, of 2,024 people, was commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport from TNS-BMRB.

The poll also found that 24% thought the licence fee should be used just for BBC output, while 73% said it was important there was plurality in regional TV news.

According to the survey, 48% of respondents were also in favour of part of the licence fee being used for a range of programmes on other channels, such as news, children's and drama, while 35% said it should be reserved for the BBC. The government has also suggested that the licence fee could be used to fund children's programmes on Channel 4.

Some 9% of respondents thought the licence fee was already used to pay for Channel 4, while 8% said they also thought it funded ITV1.

A culture ministry source said: "Ben will reiterate his support for the BBC, but he will also challenge the organisation over top-slicing."

A spokesman for the BBC Trust said that it noted the research, but needed more time to look more closely at it. An opinion poll released by the BBC Trust last week found that 49% of people favoured reducing the level of the licence fee rather than giving a slice to rival broadcasters. This question was not asked in the government research.

A motion put forward at the TUC annual conference today by the broadcasting unions Bectu and the National Union of Journalists condemned top-slicing. A parliamentary early day motion against the plan has 43 MPs signed up.

Elsewhere in Bradshaw's speech tomorrow, the minister is expected to focus on what public service broadcasting should look like in the run-up to the next BBC Charter renewal in 2017. He will also respond to James Murdoch's call that regulation should be relaxed in British broadcasting, and outline progress on the Digital Britain proposals.

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